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"Iraqi forces entered Fallujah under air cover from the international coalition, the Iraqi air force and army aviation, and supported by artillery and tanks," said Lieutenant General Abdelwahab al-Saadi, the commander of the operation.

"CTS forces, the Anbar (provincial) police and the Iraqi army, at around 4:00 am (0100 GMT), started moving into Fallujah from three directions," he said.

"There is resistance from Daesh," he added, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Beirut (AFP) - Syria's opposition chief negotiator in UN-brokered peace talks has announced his resignation in what analysts said amounted to a warning the Geneva-based process was on its "last legs".

Mohammed Alloush, a member of the Saudi-backed rebel group Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam), said on Twitter late Sunday he was resigning over the talks' failure to produce any results on humanitarian and security issues.

"The endless negotiations are harming the fate of the Syrian people," Alloush said.

He blamed the "stubborn" regime for continuing to bomb Syrian cities, but also lambasted the international community for failing to secure an end to sieges, more aid access and prisoner releases.
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A key driver behind the embrace of ISIS in Iraq is the sense of grievance held by the Sunni community against the Shia-dominated government, which many Sunnis view as pro-Iranian and as having discriminated against them whether under the leadership of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, or current Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
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So while ISIS might be eventually weakened in Iraq militarily, thousands of Sunnis are finding themselves losing their livelihoods, being internally displaced, at the mercy of militias loyal to Iran, and with a government that they regard as a continuation of its predecessor. Back in 2013, many Iraqi Sunnis had pledged allegiance to ISIS because they sought revenge against a government that they saw as being pro-Iranian and as posing a threat to their livelihoods.
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Troops aligned with Libya's government have fought "Islamic State" (IS) forces to take back control of the port of Sirte. The brigades are part of an operation backed by Libya's UN-recognized administration.
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An estimated 4,000 more people left the city over the weekend.
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Here are the five reasons why driving the militant group from Fallujah is so important to the Iraqi government and U.S.-led coalition supporting its offensive to retake the city.

“This paper provides the first systematic analysis of the link between economic, political, and social conditions and the global phenomenon of ISIS foreign fighters. We find that poor economic conditions do not drive participation in ISIS. In contrast, the number of ISIS foreign fighters is positively correlated with a country’s GDP per capita and Human Development Index (HDI). In fact, many foreign fighters originate from countries with high levels of economic development, low income inequality, and highly developed political institutions.

“Other factors that explain the number of ISIS foreign fighters are the size of a country’s Muslim population and its ethnic homogeneity. Although we cannot directly determine why people join ISIS, our results suggest that the flow of foreign fighters to ISIS is driven not by economic or political conditions but rather by ideology and the difficulty of assimilation into homogeneous Western countries.”

Silence from the Progressive Democrat hypocrites who put up daily civilian deaths during the previous administration.

-----------US air raids kill more than 200 civilians in northern Syria

Airstrikes by the American-led war coalition killed as many as 212 civilians in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo on Tuesday, according to estimates published Thursday by Al Jazeera.

The original civilian death toll produced by the strikes was reported to be 56. The strikes, which were allegedly carried out with significant support from the French military, “pulverized entire families, including young children,” the Washington Post reported Thursday.

The carnage in Aleppo is merely a foretaste of the slaughter being prepared by Washington against the Syrian city of Raqqa and Iraqi city of Mosul. The bombings, carried out in total disregard for civilian lives, serve notice that Washington and its allies are ready to carry out large-scale war crimes in pursuit of strategic domination over the Middle East.

Planning sessions for the attacks on Raqqa and Mosul were held this week, attended by leaders from the US-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other governments aligned with Washington’s “anti-Islamic State coalition.”

In addition to hashing out the details for a massive urban assault against areas inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis, the talks included discussions over a package of new military escalations throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

The stepped-up NATO military operation, to be conducted in the name of the “war against Islamic State,” includes deployments to Iraq, Syria, and Libya. The NATO powers also agreed to contribute additional forces for naval operations in the Mediterranean, as part of “Operation Sea Guardian.”

With the US military and its proxy forces on both sides of the Syria-Iraq border now in the final countdown for the offensives, it is already clear that the assaults will be bloody affairs. They are predicted to produce hundreds of thousands of refugees, and the Pentagon is planning for an extended ground occupation, aimed at “controlling the population” and modeled on the lessons of the 2003-2011 US occupation of Iraq, once Islamic State militants are cleared from the area.

The US-led coalition seeks to “collapse ISIS control over Mosul and Raqqa,” and is planning for large-scale “stabilization and governance efforts,” geared to “hold, rebuild and govern their territory,” US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said.

“Mosul is now increasingly coming upon us. We have it in sight,” anti-ISIS coalition spokesman Brett McGurk declared Thursday.

Having committed an additional 560 US troops to Iraq last week, bringing the official US troop presence there to nearly 5,000, Washington is pressing for greater troop contributions from its allies. The Australian government announced Tuesday that it will send forces to Baghdad in support of “counter-terror” training programs for Iraqi forces. NATO plans to expand efforts to train Iraqi military officers, in an effort to bolster the imperialist-controlled Iraqi government in Baghdad. The alliance is already training hundreds of Iraqi officers at camps in Jordan, and plans to expand its training programs into Iraq itself.

Secretary Carter made clear Wednesday that Washington expected all of its major allies to get on board with the “war against ISIS.” He called for material support from NATO allies, along with commitments of more trainers and advisors.

“We’re all going to need to do more,” Carter said, following discussions Wednesday morning.

“Today, we made the plans and commitments that will help us deliver ISIL the lasting defeat that it deserves,” he stated. “We’ve pursued a number of deliberate decisions to accelerate our plan.”

Just prior to Wednesday’s conference, Secretary Carter met with French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who confirmed that Paris would deploy the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle in support of the US-led aerial bombardment of Iraq and Syria.

On Thursday, Le Drian made clear the global scope of the war preparations being implemented under the banner of the “war on terror” and the “war against ISIS,” which extend from West Africa straight across to Central Asia. He called for stepped-up NATO deployments to sub-Saharan Africa, citing the need for operations focused on the Lake Chad Basin.

“We must also help the poorest countries which are on the front line (near) Lake Chad,” the French Foreign Minister said, highlighting Niger, Chad, and Nigeria for targeting by NATO forces.

Russia and the United States are close to starting joint military action against militants in Syria's Aleppo, Russian news agencies on Monday quoted Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as saying.

Fighting for control of the divided city of some 2 million people has intensified in recent weeks and there have been some gains for rebel groups battling Syrian government forces.
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Asked about Shoigu's remarks, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters in Washington: "We have seen the reports and have nothing to announce ... We remain in close contact (with Russian officials)."

Trudeau said the United States continued to push for a broader cessation of Syria hostilities accord with Russia.

The battle for Aleppo is "one of the most devastating urban conflicts in modern times," Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said on Monday.
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